although he freed the church from the old yoke of tradition, circumstances compelled him to subject it at the same time to the new yoke of the interpretation of the Gospel. The need of inner freedom for mankind had not yet been satisfied.

To that end the work of Kaspar von Schwenkfeld (1489-1561) was directed. Inspired by Tauler's sermons he eagerly welcomed Luther's work of reform. But Luther's ideas failed to keep pace with Schwenkfeld's, and the two men became absolutely estranged. The followers of Schwenkfeld in Würtemberg and in Silesia finally formed a separate sect leading very devout, retired lives. In the seventeenth century they merged with the Boehmenists. Schwenkfeld taught that Christ gave to the divine likeness, hidden within mankind since the beginning, a clear manifestation; that the Bible or external word bears witness to the inner word, Christ, the Spirit of God, within each human heart; and that the essence of true belief and faith is consciousness of the Christ within.

Doctrines similar to these were held by Sebastian Franck (1499-1542), who sought to give to them an assured philosophical basis from the principles of Neoplatonism. As humanist, theologian, and historian, he was himself an epitome of the different elements of the reformation epoch in its teachings of freedom in every realm. Exile and persecution for heretical opinions in no way lessened his demand for religious toleration, even for papists, Jews, and Turks, or made him less steadfast in his witness for the "inner light."

This spirit of mystical theology we find also in the works of Johann Arndt (1555-1621), who enjoyed the unusual reputation of completing the work of Luther and of being a heretic as well. From his pastorate in Badeborn in Anhalt,

2

he was dismissed, 1590, for objecting to Calvinistic innovations in the Lutheran church; 1618, he was denounced as a heretic by Lutheran church officials.1 His work on True Christianity was a popular treatise like Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ, upon which, with the addition of the sermons of Tauler and the Theologia Germanica, it is founded. Arndt made no pretense of formulating a system of theological doctrine; he hoped merely to give rules for active, genuine Christian life at a time when the Lutheran church was overburdened with the letter rather than the spirit of the law. The highest good of life is a feeling of the beauty of God. There are three steps to its attainment: repentance, enlightenment, union with God through love. True freedom results from an utter denial of self, the giving up of will and all desire. The preached and written word of God has authority but no more than faith, the outgrowth of the inborn "inner light."

Another supporter of mystical Christianity against the dead religious life of his time was known in Valentin Weigel (1533-1588), and particularly after his writings were pub-. lished and spread broadcast in 1612. Weigel had studied Platonic philosophy according to the Neoplatonic interpretation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, also the writings of Dionysius and Erigena. In him there was a union of the two traditions of the search for truth; to his study of the older mystics and to their teachings as transmitted by Schwenkfeld and Sebastian Franck, he added the study of natural sciences, astrology, alchemy, and magic, from the works of Agrippa and Paracelsus, both of whom were, as we have seen, indebted to the Jewish Kabalah. It is thus the reconciliation of a two-fold philosophy that we find exArnold: Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, II, p. 115.

1

2 Book I published 1605; that, with three others, 1610.

pressed in Weigel's system: all facts of life are to be learned either through ardent study of the "book of nature" or through the light of faith in a "still Sabbath," that is, in the absolute tranquillity of soul in which God speaks to men; a union of these two sources of wisdom discloses all secrets. Since man is the microcosm, a knowledge of self is the key to the knowledge of the world. The reality of all knowledge is in the observer or subject; the object is only the exciting cause of knowledge. But God is both subject and object, and since there is, inborn within us all, the spirit or "inner light" from Him, we can know Him and all things as well. Weigel taught that sin is any attempt to accomplish anything without God; that ceremonies, good perhaps as reminders of God, are in them-selves useless. He believed in the universal priesthood of man, and that God's prophets are simple people, not the highly educated. False prophets are those who preach the righteousness of war, or who denounce as heretics any with beliefs differing from their own. By no means has church or state any right to persecute for conscience' sake. It was on account of his agreement with these heterodox views that Arndt was called a "Weigelianer" and driven from his church.

The similarity of Weigel's teachings and those of the Anabaptists is very striking; they practiced his theoretical demands for moral and political reform. The freedom that Luther had demanded in the spiritual realm, Karlstadt and Münzer and their followers were demanding in the social and political realm. Karlstadt rejected the sacraments, teaching that faith itself is a power of God through which He speaks directly to the soul; by realizing itself, the soul knows God. Münzer was a devout student of Tauler, also

deeply affected by the prevailing belief in the immediately approaching millennium.

We cannot here go into the history of the extravagances and final destruction of many Anabaptists, as the followers of these men were generally called from their insistence upon adult rather than infant baptism. Failing as a social and political force, the movement lived on as a form of religious belief, which, founded wholly on inspiration as it was, naturally gave rise to many sects. Once started, inspiration could not be controlled. In the main, however, according to one of their orthodox opponents,1 the various sects agreed to the following doctrines: they rely upon inner illumination, believing that God dwells bodily within them; reject the preaching of the word of God and disregard the final authority of the Scriptures; believe in "calmest tranquillity" and ecstasy, in the manifestation of God in dreams and visions and in nature; reject the doctrine of the Trinity, the work of the Holy Ghost in men through the sacraments, the need of an atonement through Christ; and teach the three-fold nature of man,-body, soul, and spirit.

In other writings of the time more even than in those of Arndt and Weigel, we find expressed this general feeling of the age, widespread among Protestant theologians and men of culture and education, that the Protestant reformation had failed. Why is it, they asked, if Protestantism is progressing toward the goal set for it by the devout founders, why is it that men are becoming less devout, less moral in public and private life, less cultured even? Why is it that instead of one pope there have arisen in Germany many small popes? These men complained of a theology con

34.

1

2

Colberg: Das Platonisch-Hermetische Christentum, I, pp. 332

* Opel: Valentin Weigel, p. 283.

cerned mainly with doctrinal controversy, of a literature not remotely comparable to that of Luther's time, of the need, in fact, of a thorough reformation of all relations in state, church, and society. According to the Fama Fraternitatis,1 the only hope for improvement was in the combined activity of closely united like-minded men. This strange mystical writing, half fairy story, half sermon, was absolutely congenial to the spirit of this anxious, fearful, yet hopeful time; it was full of ideas of fraternity and reform, of hopes for a greater unity among men, of a higher outlook to relieve the oppressed spirit, and, best of all, hope for the near future.2 The Confessio Fraternitatis R. C.、 ad eruditos Europae, 1615, continues the story and style of the Christian Rosenkreuz of the first writing, supposed founder of the order, and gives the rules and history of the society and its plans for the general reformation of church and state. It is true that these men believe in the possibility of producing wealth by means of the philosopher's stone, but they scorn such work in the light of their real task of redeeming mankind through true religion. The whole Rosicrucian story is important as showing the feeling of the time, a decided interest in natural philosophy, the beginnings of science, along with a strong desire for religious freedom and a true inner spiritual life.

1

2

A flood of Rosicrucian writings followed the Fama and

Allgemeine und General Reformation der gantzen weiten Welt. Beneben der Fama Fraternitatis, dess Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes, an alle Gelehrte und Häupter Europas geschrieben, 1614. Opel, p. 288: "Das Jahrhundert ist erschienen, in welchem man das, was man vor Zeiten nur geahnt hat, endlich einmal aussprechen muss, wenn die Welt, die aus dem Kelche des Gifts und Schlummers empfangene Völlerei ausgeschlafen haben und der neu aufgehenden Sonne mit eröffnetem Herzen, entblösstem Haupte, und nackten Füssen fröhlich und freudig entgegen gehen wird."